Home » NewPages Blog » Page 280

NewPages Blog

At the NewPages Blog readers and writers can catch up with their favorite literary and alternative magazines, independent and university presses, creative writing programs, and writing and literary events. Find new books, new issue announcements, contest winners, and so much more!

Mag Mailbag July 17

After a couple weeks of “host issues,” I am finally able to update the site!

Stop by NewPages Magazine Stand to find publisher descriptions and cover art from our sponsor magazines, and a list of all new issues of other literary magazines received here at NewPages World Headquarters.

Trying something new once again, this page will combine print and online lit mags.

The alternative magazines page has also been recently updated, but as we aren’t getting a lot of these coming through NPWHQ, and visitor traffic to this page is discouraging low, this may be the last time this page is updated. (Unless there’s some huge public outcry opposed to its elimination…)

If you’d like to be listed, as well as considered for review, be sure we get a copy of your publication (see our FAQ page for more information). For online lit mags, you only need to e-mail notification of when you have a new issue posted online: denisehill-at-newpages.com

NewPages Update :: New Listings :: July 2008

More great finds added to the NewPages ranks. Welcome aboard – give ’em a click!

When viewing our guides, if you know of any links (mags, publishers, bookstores, record labels, etc.) you would like us to consider, please write to me: denisehill-at-newpages.com and send me a link.

New Online Lit Mags Listed
Parlor Journal
Shelf Life
CellA’s Round Trip
Road Runner Haiku Journal
Pregnant Moon Poetry Review

New Print Lit Mags Listed
Low Rent
Two Review
Packingtown Review
Oval
Illuminations
Ocho
MiPOesias

New Online Alt Mags Listed
Is Greater Than

New Print Alt Mags Listed
Penguin Eggs
Ode Magazine
Good Magazine
Alternatives
Whole Terrain
Our Truths/Neustras Verdades
Social Policy
The Last Straw
Permaculture Activist

New Publishers Listed
Green Candy Press
Firebrand Books

PEN Amercian Prison Writing Awards

Every year, the PEN Prison Writing Program recognizes the work of writers imprisoned throughout the country. Exiled from our schools and society, inmates submit manuscripts in every form to one of the only forums of public expression for incarcerated writers. Presented on the PEN American website are uncensored writings (poetry, fiction, essay, memoir, drama) from this year’s Prison Writing Contest winners, as well as one-on-one interviews with some of the most hidden voices in America.

Narrative Medicine

The Program in Narrative Medicine was established in the Department of Medicine at Columbia University in 1996. Its mission statement reads: “Narrative Medicine fortifies clinical practice with the narrative competence to recognize, absorb, metabolize, interpret, and be moved by the stories of illness. Through narrative training, the Program in Narrative Medicine helps doctors, nurses, social workers, and therapists to improve the effectiveness of care by developing the capacity for attention, reflection, representation, and affiliation with patients and colleagues. Our research and outreach missions are conceptualizing, evaluating, and spear-heading these ideas and practices nationally and internationally.”

Included in the program are:

Narrative Medicine Rounds
Lecture/reading series with such writers as Mark Nepo, Sue Halpren, Carol Gilligan,

Literature@Work
Discussions of literature

Narrative Medicine Workshops
Three-day intensive workshops for health care professionals and literary scholars engaged in narrative medicine practice. The next workshop will be held October 24 – 26, 2008.

Narrative Oncology
Doctors, nurses, and social workers on the oncology unit of Presbyterian Hospital gather bimonthly to read to one another what they have written about their day-to-day clinical experiences.

Student Creative Rounds and Reflexions, a student literary publication, as well as seminars for students at various levels.

Alaska Quarterly Review – Spring/Summer 2008

This issue of Alaska Quarterly Review is nice and thick and full of great writing. Of the fiction, my favorite story was “B & B” by Celeste Ng, a coming of age tale featuring a main character who suffers from pica, the urge to eat things the rest of us don’t consider food. I will never look at chalk in the same way again. I also enjoyed Shao Wang’s story, “One Voted No,” a melancholy piece about an aging Chinese widow whose life is disrupted when the town must elect a mayor. Continue reading “Alaska Quarterly Review – Spring/Summer 2008”

The Briar Cliff Review – 2008

With a splendid cornucopia of colors and textures on the large, glossy front cover, and many gorgeous full pages of voluptuous art and photography within, The Briar Cliff Review could be a splendid coffee-table book. However, with the quality literature inside, it proves it is something more. The art is spectacular – twenty-two works from oil or acrylic to graphite, sculpture, even archival inkjet. Thirteen photographs are equally spectacular and eclectic – the issue is a feast for the eyes. Continue reading “The Briar Cliff Review – 2008”

Broken Bridge Review – 2007

Broken Bridge Review sports a three-piece painting as cover art: three gorgeous blue-green panels titled “World View Trip-Tik” by Jessica Hathaway Scriver, painted on top of world maps. The editors chose to make this painting the inspiration for this issue, and included a substantial amount of material that is in some way connected to the political sphere. Continue reading “Broken Bridge Review – 2007”

Cannibal – Winter 2008

Brooklyn-based Cannibal by the editorial duo Katy & Matthew Henriksen is a poetry journal in the manner of sharp sincerity – sharp in its well-rounded and striking poem selections and sincere in its physical construction. With a textural screen-printed cover in copper ink, copy-job striations and sewn binding, the journal has the look and feel of a gift hand made for you by your no-frills but talented friend. The journal’s seven signatures handbound to the spine capture in their physicality the overall theme of the work: poems in parts. Continue reading “Cannibal – Winter 2008”

Conduit – Spring 2008

Conduit: subtitled, “Last Laugh,” “Black Humor in Deadpan Alley,” “Words & Visions for Minds on Fire,” is just what these phrases suggest. This tall, narrow issue with a gold skull and crossbones printed on the black cover definitely sports a sense of humor, and strives to be different. Instead of having numbered pages, it has alphabetized words on the lower corners of pages, such as, “antics, balderdash, banter, barb….”all the way to “wag, whoopee cushion, wiseacre, x-ray specs, zany.” Continue reading “Conduit – Spring 2008”

Creative Nonfiction – 2008

Issue 34 of Creative Nonfiction is all about baseball. I have to admit, I’m a bigger fan of baseball writing than I am of the actual game, and this magazine does not disappoint. The essays cover many aspects of the game: its history, fandom, positions and paraphernalia. They include heavily researched articles and deeply personal memoirs, but all the essays reveal something fascinating about the game. Continue reading “Creative Nonfiction – 2008”

First City Review – Spring 2008

Though not planned as a themed issue, Editor Michael W. Pollock claims “Dysfunction” took hold in tying this collection together. Admittedly, the theme didn’t stick with me, as I found each work unique in its own right, the strength of this journal being the variety of the prose selections. Continue reading “First City Review – Spring 2008”

Forge – Winter 2007

Forge is a short, one hundred-plus-page journal, small in size but not in impact. It chose as its cover theme “little people opening things.” The picture on the pale, yellow, glossy cover depicts black stick-like figures pushing open two huge doors that dwarf the little anonymous people, making a 1984-esque look. Forge is actually quite whimsical in places, very modern in its approach and material, and frequently rather dark. Continue reading “Forge – Winter 2007”

The Georgia Review – Spring 2008

From the essays to the poetry and fiction, war and 9/11 are recurrent themes in this issue of The Georgia Review. The essays – by Ihad Hassan, Reg Saner and Elizabeth Dodd – all examine current and past world crises, from fundamentalism in literature to a reminiscence by a Korean War vet. In Dodd’s essay, she meets an Iraqi poet who wrestles with disturbing images of war and suffering. Continue reading “The Georgia Review – Spring 2008”

The Lumberyard – 2008

An image of a ferocious bear wielding a handsaw at a precise 45-degree angle over a two-by-four greets the reader after opening the handsomely letterpressed cover of The Lumberyard: A magazine for poetry and design. Though slim at thirty-two pages, the magazine is otherwise stuffed with a visual array of black and white cropped text and found art in a copy-job, cut-and-paste style. The layout, with varying font sizes within pages and poems, has the jostled effect of ‘90s television dramas shot by hand-held cams, which may be distracting for some or a fresh sight for others looking for an irreverently-styled magazine. Continue reading “The Lumberyard – 2008”

Measure – 2007

In these days when literary journals have mainly free verse poetry, Measure: An Annual Review of Formal Poetry is a refreshing contrast. This second issue contains over two hundred pages of formal poems, from Catullus and Horace to Seamus Heaney and Richard Wilbur, as well as many lesser-known poets. Continue reading “Measure – 2007”

Memoir – Spring 2008

To launch their inaugural issue of Memoir, a literary magazine devoted to prose, poetry, graphics, and more, the co-editors, Joan E. Chapman and Candida Lawrence, write competing columns on the definition of memoir. Chapman brings a postmodern reading lens to the genre, delighting in the shifting self and the instability of memory, while Lawrence focuses on a good story carried by a strong voice. Taken together their viewpoints create a solid definition of the complex genre and provide the perfect starting point for a magazine devoted solely to memoir in all its forms. Continue reading “Memoir – Spring 2008”

Mudfish – 2007

“Art & Poetry” reads the cover of Mudfish 15, with an impressionistic watercolor of a man treading water in a swimming pool; on the back is a watercolor of trees, a blue mountain, purple fields, a pink sky, all conveyed beautifully by Paul Wuenshe with a few deft brush strokes. Also deft are the poems inside, which can be as short as three lines, or a paragraph or two; many contained in a single page, some several pages. Continue reading “Mudfish – 2007”

PEN America – 2008

Most of PEN America reads less like a traditional literary journal and more like the transcript of conversations with authors, which makes sense, since much of the writing comes from PEN’s annual World Voice festivals. The unique format allows for interviews, conversations formed around a theme, and short remarks, as well as the traditional poetry, fiction, and essays. Of the various forms, the interviews and conversations stood out the most to me. Continue reading “PEN America – 2008”

Reverie – 2008

Midwest African American Literature may seem to set a narrow focus for this publication, but in Reverie, writing to or of the socio-cultural African American experience runs like an undercurrent throughout the broad expanse of the literature. That its authors need only be somehow related to the Midwest does not limit the content, but rather helps to further create a sense of unity and connection. Continue reading “Reverie – 2008”

The Tusculum Review – 2007

The Tusculum Review is two hundred pages of a bit of everything – all wrapped up in a glossy purple cover. Ordinary? Not even close. “New voices” – that’s what the editors tell us it is about. It contains fresh, exciting material – like a one-act play with only one character living out a “wide awake nightmare,” titled “Gone” by Roy Sorrels. It’s ingenious, compact, and a delightful mini-nightmare to read. Continue reading “The Tusculum Review – 2007”

World Literature Today – July-August 2008

“Literature Goes Green” is the theme of this issue of WLT, with Laird Christensen’s essay, “Writing Home in a Global Age,” setting a pivotal tone. In it, he comments on the contemporary writer’s focus on local place when there are many more global issues at hand that need our attention. Bill McKibben, for example, has gone local while the rest of us are just now ‘getting it’ – the alarm of global concern he sounded two decades ago in his book The End of Nature. Christensen argues that this more microscopic shift is necessary, brought on by our own “voluntary placelessness in removing ourselves from the land and how we see the bioregion in which we live.” This lack of connection to place has allowed us to treat that which sustains us so poorly. With no sense of place, we have no sense of responsibility. Yet, this local literature is often treated as second-rate. Christensen counters this attitude: “The bulk of place-based writing, no matter how local, deals in universals, for we are all in desperate need of examples that show us how to belong.” This essay, as well as the whole issue, would be a powerful addition to any curriculum that includes nature, environmental, or place-based writing. Continue reading “World Literature Today – July-August 2008”

Job :: Bookstore Manager

Named “the best campus bookstore in the country” by Rolling Stone, Kenyon College seeks manager to begin next chapter for its campus bookstore with national reputation for its rich literary traditions. Must have experience leading and managing others, ability to network and develop marketing/event opportunities, and interest in relocating to village of Gambier, Ohio or surrounding area. Highly visible (and celebrated) position on campus requires positive, energetic and creative manager with interest in being an active part of the campus and surrounding community. Kenyon College is an EOE. Send a brief statement of interest along with resum

NewPages Employee of the Month

If you’ve ever wondered how the mail processing works at NewPages World Headquarters, here’s an image of the first step. Scrappy the Maildog makes a daily walk to the post office to retrieve precious bundles of books, lit mags, and letters, and bring them back to HQ. As you can imagine, Scrappy is an integral part of our work here and earns some of the best food and ear-scratching bonuses of any dog employee. He takes his job seriously and has never once made a “long stop” while working; he feels to do so would be disrespectful to the literature (regardless of the fact that not all humans feel the same way).

As you can see from the image, his bag has suffered through days of hard labor. These are Outward Hound bags, which I would not recommend because of their weak zippers. Although, I suspect cramming some of those heavyweight poetry annuals in there might have had something to do with it; no zipper is a match for free verse. (You can borrow that line; I can see it might be useful in a few other situations.)

To answer the FAQ – I don’t know what kind of dog Scrappy is. I adopted him when he was three from a no-kill shelter where he had been housed for nine months. He came with numerous bad behaviors, but with patience, obedience classes (for both of us), and continuous positive reinforcement, he has become a registered therapy dog, a wonderful companion, and a dedicated staff member of NewPages.

To Scrappy, all howl – Ah-rooooo!

Disability Journal Expands Focus

In 2009 the innovative Journal of Literary Disability is moving to Liverpool University Press under the new title Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies. It will continue to focus on the literary representation of disability, but cultural studies will now be added to the multidisciplinary mix.

With an editorial board of 50 internationally renowned scholars, the journal is central to the literary disability movement that is changing the face of literary studies on a global scale.

Special issues have included Representations of Cognitive Impairment, guest edited by Dr. Lucy Burke, Senior Lecturer, Department of English, Manchester Metropolitan University; Disability and the Dialectic of Dependency, guest edited by Dr. Michael Davidson, Vice Chair, Department of Literature, University of California; and Disability and/as Poetry, guest edited by Dr. Jim Ferris, Faculty Associate, Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin.

The first issue in the new format, JLCDS 3.1: Deleuze, Disability and Difference, will be a special issue, guest edited by Dr. Petra Kuppers, Associate Professor of English, Theatre, and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan; and Dr. James Overboe, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University. Many disability scholars have been wary of utilizing poststructuralism as a means to disrupt ableism. But there is much nuance in poststructuralist thought and its relation to representational politics, and JLCDS 3.1 hopes to push disability studies further along its journey into this territory.

Collaborative Autobiography :: The Grand Piano

An interesting concept, especially in its decades-long planning and the use of sequencing in each volume. I’ve not seen a copy of this – anyone who has is welcome to comment. From the website:

The Grand Piano is an experiment in collective autobiography by ten writers identified with Language poetry in San Francisco. The project takes its name from a coffeehouse at 1607 Haight Street in San Francisco where from 1976 to 1979 several of us programmed and coordinated – and all of us participated in – a weekly reading and performance series.

The Grand Piano is centered on the 1970s when we first met and collaborated. Yet we all engage issues beyond that time, and the project adheres to no prescribed set of themes. Originally, each author was to follow the prompt of the previous. In the event, many sections have been written out of order, and the project’s development has been nonlinear even as it is being published in serial form. Rae Armantrout, Steve Benson, Carla Harryman, Lyn Hejinian, Tom Mandel, Ted Pearson, Bob Perelman, Kit Robinson, Ron Silliman, and Barrett Watten write The Grand Piano.

New volumes appear several times a year. The complete series will comprise ten volumes, with the ten authors appearing in different sequence in each volume, according to the following grid:

1 BP BW SB CH TM RS KR LH RA TP
2 BW TP RA SB KR TM RS CH LH BP
3 SB TM CH RA LH BP BW TP KR RS
4 CH KR TM BW RA TP LH BP RS SB
5 TM RS BW TP SB RA BP KR CH LH
6 RS SB BP KR BW LH CH RA TP TM
7 KR CH LH RS BP BW TP TM SB RA
8 LH RA RS BP TP KR TM SB BW CH
9 RA LH TP TM RS CH SB BW BP KR
10 TP BP KR LH CH SB RA RS TM BW

Meridian’s Lost Classics a Great Find

Meridian, the semi-annual from the University of Virginia, celebrates its 10th Anniversary with its May 2008 issue. In it are selections from the first ten years of Meridian. One of the regular features of Meridian is the “Lost Classic” – which is exactly as it sounds.

The retrospective includes a list of the twenty classics, a brief explanation as to “why it is important,” for some “what happened to it,” and an excerpt of the text. A few listed classics: Letters from Jack London to Louis A. Augusin; Zora Neeale Hurston: Unpublished Writing from the Federal Writers’ Project and a Lost Interview; Two Uncollected Works by Robert Frost; A special Portfolio by Jane Kenyon; A Letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Washington Irving.

This issue of Meridian‘s “Lost Classic” is “Stephen Crane’s Deleted Chapters from Red Badge of Courage.” The introduction by Jeb Livingood as well as the chapters are available on Meridian‘s website. A number of the previous issues’ Lost Classics are also available on their site.

A wonderful feature for reconnecting and reconsidering works and their authors.

Giveaway :: Indiana Review Funk Trivia

To celebrate Indiana Review 30.1 (summer 2008) – The Funk Feature – Associate Editor Nina Mamikunian let me know about the “Five Hump Days of Funk” going on at Under the Blue Light, IR’s blog.

“Here’s how it’s going to work: on Wednesday, we’ll ask a question, you’ll answer it an an e-mail to us, and we’ll select a winner based on response accuracy first, and then on response speed. The following Monday, we’ll announce who gets the copy of the issue.”

Click quickly, and get your free issue – it’s a dandy!

Awards :: Margaret Atwood

A neighbor recently loaned me her copy of Atwoods’s short stories, Moral Disorder, which I am slowly making my way through – one story a night before bed: my nightcap. It is a collection claimed to be as close to autobiography as Atwood has written in her fiction. More poignant: I find it to be a reminder of what it is I admire and appreciate in a “good story.” The book, BTW, with a 2006 copyright, and a first edition, is already a victim of “discard” from a public library. *sigh* That’s another blog story…

Canada’s Margaret Atwood Wins Spanish Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature
Excerpted from China View
Read more on CBCNews.ca

Canadian writer Margaret Atwood has won the 2008 Prince of Asturias Award for Letters, the jury said Wednesday in Oviedo, northern Spain.

“We decided to bestow the award on Margaret Atwood for her outstanding literary work that has explored different genres with acuteness and irony, and because she cleverly assumes the classic tradition, defends women’s dignity and denounces social unfairness,” the jury said.

The poet, novelist and literary critic was born in 1939 in Ottawa. She received international recognition with her novel “The Edible Woman” (1969), followed by “Surfacing” (1972-1973), “Lady Oracle” (1977), “Life Before Man” (1980), “Cat’s Eye” (1988) and “The Robber Bride” (1993).

Atwood is considered to be the greatest living Canadian writer and one of the most eminent voices in the current scene. She offers in her novels a politically committed, critical view of the world and contemporary society, while revealing extraordinary sensitivity in her copious poetic oeuvre, a genre which she cultivates with great skill. The plot of her novels usually focuses on the figure of women.

The literature award attracted 32 candidates from 24 countries this year. It is one of the eight that the Prince of Asturias Foundation gives out yearly since 1981. Other categories include scientific research, sports, arts and humanities. Each carries a 50,000-euro (77,00 U.S. dollars) cash stipend, a sculpture by Catalan sculptor Joan Miro, a diploma and an insignia.

Jobs :: Various

The Professional Writing Program, English Department, at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Creative Writing: Drama beginning August 2009. Dr. Heather H. Thomas, Chair, Tenure-Track Creative Writing Faculty Search Committee.

The English Department at Washburn University is seeking a poet to join a vital undergraduate writing program with colleagues in fiction and creative nonfiction writing. Howard Faulkner, Chair. September 29, 2008.

Emory University. Two-year Creative Writing Fellowship in fiction undergraduate English/Creative Writing Program, beginning fall 2009. November 14, 2008.

Promote Poetry in Your Community

It’s not too late to ask your local or student newspaper to start running this column, or to add it to your own publication. There are two levels of permissible use, with publications only needing to register online (it’s easy); personal use/classroom use need not register.

“American Life in Poetry is a free weekly column for newspapers and online publications featuring a poem by a contemporary American poet and a brief introduction to the poem by Ted Kooser. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry, and we believe we can add value for newspaper and online readers by doing so. There are no costs or obligations for reprinting the columns, though we do require that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration, along with the complete copyright, permissions and credit information, exactly as supplied with each column.”

In addition so seeing so many of my favorite poets in this project, I have also discovered many new voices. I was also pleased to see two of my friends and colleagues featured: Jeff Vande Zande for his poem “Clean,” and Rick “Anhinga Rick” Campbell, of Anhinga Press, for his work “Heart.”

Web Find :: Asian American Writer’s Workshop

Established in 1991, The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, a nonprofit literary arts organization based in New York city, was founded in support of writers, literature and community.

Operating out of our 6,000 square-foot loft, AAWS sponsors readings, book parties and panel discussions, and offers creative writing workshops. Each winter they present The Annual Asian American Literary Awards Ceremony to recognize outstanding literary works by Americans of Asian descent. Throughout the year, they offer various youth arts programs, including the Where I’m Calling From youth workshop.

The AAWW also offers internships in a number of areas. Application deadline February 1 of each year, then on a rolling basis until all positions are filled

Also included on the site, “The Million Dollar Book Contract: How to Get (the BEST) Agent” – a transcript of a panel discussion held on April 25, 2006, featuring four top literary agents sharing their expertise on how to land a book contract.

NewPages Update :: Book Reviews :: July 2008

New Book Reviews have been posted on NewPage. Stop by and take a look at what our reviewers had to say about: Best of the Web 2008 :: Knockemstiff :: Distance Makes the Heart Grow Sick :: Seal Woman :: Alluvium :: Little Brother :: Clear All the Rest of the Way :: Spilling the Moon :: Girl on the Fridge

Creative Nonfiction Forum :: Fourth Genre

Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction (published biannually by the Michigan State University Press) includes a forum on their website of articles from past issues: “We like to think of Fourth Genre as a learning community, a place where writers and readers can meet and engage in conversations, ask questions, experiment, test boundaries, offer advice, and share insights into literary nonfiction. The following excerpts, drawn from past issues, capture something of the range and complexity of that conversation.”

Currently, the Forum on Nonfiction includes:

Interview with Scott Russell Sanders
Roundtable Discussion: Literal versus Invented Truth in Memoir
Bret Lott, “Toward a Definition of Creative Nonfiction”
Lee Gutkind, “Why I Chose the Creative Nonfiction Way of Life”
Nancy McCabe, “The One That Got Away: On Memory and Forgetting”
Michael Steinberg, “Finding the Inner Story in Memoirs and Personal Essays”
Interview with Richard Rodriguez
Capsule Book Review by David Cooper

Looking For Good Foot 7

An interesting request: Anyone have a copy of Good Foot Issue #7 you would be willing to give up? I’ve got a “shot in the dark” request from someone who was published in it who never received a copy of the issue – it was the last published – and we can’t track down anyone associated with the publication. Said author now needs a copy of the mag for professional reasons. NewPages never got a copy of issue 7, so we can’t help out on this one. Anyone? If you have one and will part with it, please send it our way: NewPages, POB 1580, Bay City, MI 48706. I’m sure some good literary karma will come your way as a result…and don’t we all need more of that?

E-mail me and let me know: denisehill-at-newpages.com

New Online Lit Mag :: Cella’s Round Trip

CEllA’s Round Trip publishes poetry, flash fiction/non-fiction, digital poetry, digital art, photography (digitally altered or au naturale), collage, drawings, paintings, shockwave, movies, etc. Favor given to the experimental and creative use of the digital medium; art that creatively utilize words and language; experimental and precise creative writing that utilizes visuals to enhance meaning.

Issue #01, Summer 2008, includes Barry Graham, Christophe Casamassima, Sara Crowley, Craig LaRotunda, Ava C. Cipri, Valerie Fox, William Doreski, C.L. Bledsoe, Jon Pineada, Gwendolyn Joyce-Mintz, Elizabeth Kate Switaj, Vernon Frazer, Cheryl Hicks, Glenn Capers, and more.

Special Calls for Issue #02
.swf or .mov files: “We want good stories that literally move.”
Broadsides. Design the art around your text or the text around your art.

The Future of FC2

Our gal Brenda Mills, managing editor at Fiction Collective 2, had some things to say in the most recent company newsletter (04.08) about changes at FC2. In sum, due to budget cuts at Florida State University (FC2’s home), Brenda’s job will be cut in August. Moreover, when Brenda leaves, she was told to take FC2 with her.

That sounds pretty bad.

However, in the literary world, when one falls, there is often someone else there holding the net. In this case, Jeffrey Di Leo, founder of symploke, editor of ABR, Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences at the U of Houston-Victoria, and long-time friend of FC2, offered to fund several positions at UHV to become the new Brendas (we knew it would take more than one to replace her!), and offered FC2 a home.

That sounds pretty good.

Additionally, UHV is planning to establish an endowment fund to provide for FC2’s future, kicking up promotional activities in their new home area, and will be joined by Matthew Kirkpatrick (of Barrellhouse fame) to add a vast expanse of knowledgeable experience to the work.

That sounds really good.

So far so good for FC2. I’d say a lucky break in the fall, but I know there had to be a lot of people doing a lot of negotiating and paper pushing to get this all to happen so quickly and, seemingly, so smoothly. No doubt, our gal Brenda was – and will be – workin’ it all the way to the end.

Oh, yeah, Brenda.

No, she will not be moving with FC2. With a family in Tallahassee, a move to Texas was not possible. Golly gee whiz, we’re going to miss Brenda. Her insatiable appetite for experimental fiction and unending enthusiasm for her work really made the public face of FC2. She was one of the first people I met at the very first AWP I attended oh so many years ago, and I still have the promotional Barbie Doll leg as a keepsake. Since then, she and her cadre of authors have been one of the greatest highlights of the conference for me, and so I’m sure, for many. What now? I suppose time will tell, but I hope for all her hard work and dedication, something good comes her way.

New Lit on the Block :: Oval

The Oval is a brand new literary magazine from the University of Montana published by undergraduate students.

Oval‘s website says they are “devoted to the publishing of writing and artwork from the University of Montana,” and the first issue features UofM students exclusively. However, future issues are open to submissions from undergraduate college and university students in the U.S. Their mission: “to provide a fresh outlet for new and young artists to express themselves, their ideas and passions to the world through the medium of print.”

Oval accepts e-mail submissions year-round: poetry (translations welcome), short stories, creative nonfiction, short plays, interviews, and visual art (such as photography, paintings, drawings, prints, cartoons, and graphic literature).

The Spring 2008 inagural issue is available online (pdf) and includes “Buss, Buss” by poet Laura Anne Nicole Foster, “Just Fine” by author Crystal Corrigan, and “Wolverine and Rabbitt” by artist Eli Suzukovich III.

What’s this thing you call Type Writer?

Here’s a story that comes from my friend Sue about her 14-year-old daughter, Corby:

Corby is spending the weekend at my dad’s. My dad is in the process of trying to clean out the house for a future sale (which is a WHOLE other story). So he, Corby and my stepmother are going through the troves of junk in the basement. They find my handy, dandy MANUAL typewriter. Corby calls to report this “ancient” find.

She then begins to question me. “How does it work. I see the stick thing (the stick thing???) goes up into the middle of the machine. But how does the letter get on the paper?”

I try to explain.

She says she’s pressing on a key and it just isn’t hitting anything. I tell her she must punch the key harder. She still can’t figure it out. My husband, Dennis, asks, “Does she have paper in it?” Surprisingly enough, she did.

She asked what the black ribbon was for. I explained. Then she punched the key harder – and miracle of miracles – it worked (I can’t believe the ribbon hasn’t dried out – this thing has got to be at least 30 years old).

She asked me why I had this typewriter. I told her that I had to type papers for school on it. Her comment: “That must have sucked.” She has no idea…

She hangs up so she can play with the ancient piece of technology.

Dennis and I were having a good chuckle over the fact that I had to try to explain how a manual typewriter works. My phone rings again.

“Mom? How do I turn the Caps Lock off?”

*Sigh*

And I thought having the Birds and Bees talk would have been difficult!

Best of the Web 2008

At the heart of Dzanc Books’ anthology Best of the Web 2008 sits a quiet essay titled “Thirst and the Writer’s Sense of Consequence” by David Bottoms. In the essay, originally published in the Kennesaw Review, Bottoms takes for his starting point Walt Whitman’s poem “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” the language of which inspires him to explore “the whole question of artistic sensibility, more specifically, the sensibility that gives impulse to poetry and literary fiction.” Although it is a change of pace from the poetry and prose of the surrounding pages, for example, Christina Kallery’s poem “Swan Falls in Love with Swan-Shaped Boat” and R.T. Smith’s story “What I Omitted from the Official Personnel Services Report,” the essay gives the anthology a solid center from which the other pieces might develop. Continue reading “Best of the Web 2008”

Knockemstiff

There’s no way I could start this review with a sentence better than any of the first lines in Knockemstiff, the debut collection by Donald Ray Pollock.  Perhaps this one from the collection’s opening story, “Real Life,” which starts, “My father showed me how to hurt a man one August night at the Torch Drive-in when I was seven years old.” Another, “Bactine,” opens with “I’ve been staying out around Massieville with my crippled uncle because I was broke and unwanted everywhere else, and I spent most of my days changing his slop bucket and sticking fresh cigarettes in his smoke hole.” Continue reading “Knockemstiff”

Distance Makes the Heart Grow Sick

As the name implies, the DIY (Do It Yourself) movement is all about self-sufficiency. The punk branch of this larger concept pushes the ideology even further, basically shouting to all: “If your activities (aka consumer services or items) exploit planet Earth or creatures of, then f—k off! We’ll do it ourselves!” This model is essentially economic, finding new (and theoretically purer) paths around consumer culture, from music production (David Ferguson, Michelle Branch, etc.) to advertising (the very successful Sticker Junkie, among others) to the local farmer’s market or garage sale (or dare I say eBay?). DIY innately lends itself to the sensibilities of art and the internet: blogs, zines, forums, the arteries and chambers of the underground, of buzz, immediacy and verve – the hiss and crackle of punk. Continue reading “Distance Makes the Heart Grow Sick”

Seal Woman

In Seal Woman, a historical novel by native Icelander Solveig Eggerz, Charlotte is a German wife and mother fleeing war-torn Berlin and the ghosts of her memory. One of more than 300 people responding to an ad for “strong women who can cook and do farm work” in Iceland, Charlotte hopes to live in a land without war memories – one she hopes will prove a refuge from the difficult recollections of her missing Jewish husband and their daughter. Continue reading “Seal Woman”

Alluvium

I picked up Erin M. Bertram’s Alluvium less on the reputation of its writer, whom I knew little about, than that of its publisher. Kristy Bowen’s dancing girl press is an enviable little operation that publishes handmade chapbooks by a veritable who’s who list of emerging women poets, and I was curious to check out one of its latest offerings. Continue reading “Alluvium”

Little Brother

Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother is his first young adult book, but don’t let that put you off reading it. This is perhaps the first essential book I’ve read this year, the first novel that feels important enough to recommend it to every single person I discuss books with. While it will resonate best with teens, who will identify closely with its protagonist and his friends, the issues covered over the course of the story are important enough to matter to every American reader. Continue reading “Little Brother”